As is known and understood, many different makes of canister-type vacuum cleaners are available for commercial or industrial use, as compared to the typical vacuum-cleaner design used residentially. Sold under such names as Black & Decker, Shop Vac, Wet-Dry Vac, Eureka, Hoover and Sears, these types of machines all include a cylindrical bin having a vacuum blower connected at its upper end and a pick-up hose coupled to it either at its top, or through its side. As contrasted with the "residential" type vacuum cleaner, noted to be absent is any type of disposable collection bag. Thus, once the cylindrical bin is filled, it is then carried outside and dumped. Usually, with "dry" materials being collected, the result is a blowing up of a dust cloud in the user's face. To avoid this, suggestions have been made to line the bin with a plastic disposable bag before use so that the bag can be tied once filled, removed from the bin and disposed of in any available, permissible manner. Many of these attempts, however, proved unsuccessful in that the disposable plastic bag got sucked in at the filter mechanism or at the outlet to the external atmosphere. These attempts quickly proved unusable, and led to further attempts to solve the problem.
In one, described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,740,933, a rigid cylindrical liner is slipped inside the bag, and the combination then placed in the trash collecting bin. Said to prevent the plastic bag from collapsing and blocking the air flow, the liner could then be slipped out of the bag and re-used; but, such liner, as described, is available only with a canister-type cleaner having a vacuum blower in the top of the canister and is of a rigid, cylindrical construction designed to fit only a given canister size, so that different ones would be required when working with canisters of either 8 gallon, 12 gallon, 16 gallon, or even 1 gallon capacities. In a second arrangement, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,895, a basket form holds the disposable plastic bag in place, with its disadvantage that the cross members at its bottom tends to pull the debris from the collecting bag when removing the basket, along with its being costly to produce and manufacture. In fact, analysis has shown that the cost of the basket itself might run to 10% and more as compared to the cost of the canister machine with which it is to be used.